Recruiters Rank Haas #5 in The Wall Street Journal

The Haas School ranked #5 in The Wall Street Journal's national ranking of full-time MBA programs published on September 20, 2006.

This is the first time that a UC full-time MBA program has ranked in the top five of the major rankings. Haas ranked #7 in 2005.

The Wall Street Journal bases its ranking entirely on a survey of corporate recruiters.

In addition to the national ranking, recruiters placed Haas #11 in the international ranking, which reflects US and international schools' global reach in job placement. In a ranking by industry, recruiters from the technology, telecommunications, and Internet sectors ranked Haas #1.

Haas placed in the top ten in several academic disciplines:

#2 in social responsibility
#3 in entrepreneurship
#4 in information technology
#9 in international business
#10 in marketing

Recruiters named Haas the third best school for hiring women, the fifth best school for minorities, and the fifth best for hiring graduates with strong ethical standards. They also voted Haas the second most undervalued school (tied with Carnegie-Mellon University), and the ninth best for CEO material.

The Wall Street Journal quotes recruiters applauding Haas graduates for their creative and entrepreneurial streak. Devan Cross, a survey respondent and special-operations general manager for Pulte Homes, Inc., was quoted saying: "Students at Haas are among the most talented and capable of any MBA program. They are enthusiastic about making a real difference in their careers, particularly if they can do it in a team-oriented fashion rather than in a cut-throat situation. The latter does not suit the typical Haas student."

This is the sixth annual Wall Street Journal ranking. It is based on the opinions and behaviors of 4125 recruiters. Harris Interactive conducted the recruiter survey for The Wall Street Journal. Recruiter names were provided by participating business schools.

Registered users can see the complete rankings report on The Wall Street Journal web site at www.wsj.com.

Assistant Professor Cameron Anderson Finds Powerful People Take More Risks

Powerful people view life through rose-colored glasses, with their more optimistic outlook ultimately leading them to engage in riskier behavior, according to Haas School Assistant Professor Cameron Anderson.

Anderson and co-author Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University demonstrate how a sense of power leads individuals to risk-seeking behavior in five separate studies outlined in an article titled "Power, Optimism, and Risk-Taking" in the July/August issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology.

In the business world, Anderson and Galinsky note that risky behavior can be beneficial, helping individuals maintain or even increase their power. By engaging in risky behavior, the powerful may take advantage of high upside opportunities that others avoid, the authors write.

But the business world also is littered with examples of powerful executives taking risks that ultimately hurt them, whether it's the latest scandal over backdating stock options or an unsuccessful merger or acquisition.

"Our work is shedding light on the psychological mechanisms for those sometimes infamous blunders," says Anderson, a member of the Haas Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations Group who earned a Ph.D. in social/personality psychology from UC Berkeley.

Anderson notes, for instance, that when he and Galinsky began their research, former President Clinton was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "It's a good example of someone who was feeling so powerful that he was totally blind to the possibility that he was going to get caught," Anderson says.

In one experiment, Anderson and Galinksy tested the link between power and risk-taking in a face-to-face negotiations exercise, with one student playing a job candidate and the other a job recruiter. The more powerful participants perceived themselves in the negotiation, the more risks they were willing to take by divulging information, the authors found.

That experiment showed power can cut both ways in a negotiation, says Anderson, who teaches a "Negotiations and Conflict Resolution" course to MBA students.

"Feeling less powerful can actually be detrimental because you're less likely to divulge some of your information that you need to in order to create a win-win situation," Anderson says. "At the same time, people who go into the negotiation with a huge advantage over their opponent might throw everything onto the table and feel like there's no harm in doing so and get taken to the cleaners."

PayPal Co-founder Max Levchin to Speak at Haas, September 29

Max Levchin, co-founder and former chief technology officer of PayPal, will speak as part of the Berkeley-Columbia MBA Speaker Series this Friday, September 29.

The event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Haas School's Arthur Andersen Auditorium. It is free and open to the entire Haas School community.

Max Levchin is originally from Kiev, Ukraine, and moved to Chicago in 1991. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he co-founded two Internet companies, NetMeridian Software and SponsorNet New Media.

PayPal, originally called Fieldlink and Confinity, was co-founded by Max Levchin in 1998. PayPal went public in February 2002, and was subsequently acquired by eBay.

In 2004, Levchin founded Slide, a personal media-sharing service. Levchin also helped start Yelp, an online social networking and reviewing service.

Previous speakers of in the Berkeley-Columbia MBA Speaker Series included George Lucas, chairman of LucasFilm, and Dave Olsen, co-founder and senior vice president for Culture and Leadership Development at Starbucks, and Carol Browner, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Berkeley-Columbia MBA program is a partnership between the Haas School of Business and Columbia Business School offering MBA degrees to mid-to-senior-level executives.

October at Cal means beautiful weather, Pac-10 football, and of course, Homecoming. Come celebrate with the entire Haas community on Saturday, October 7.

Activities begin at 1:30 p.m. with a talk by Dean Tom Campbell. He will discuss his forecasts for California's economy and the potential impacts of the state-wide elections in November. The talk, entitled "Political and Fiscal Predictions for California and the Nation," will be held in the Arthur Andersen Auditorium and is free of charge.

A Mexican Fiesta luncheon will be served in the Haas courtyard from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. and includes a plentiful buffet and beverages of all types. The cost is $25 for alumni and $10 for faculty, staff, students, and children ages five to 17. There will be a live band and activities for kids.

At 5:00 p.m., the Bears take on the Oregon Ducks. Haas-reserved seats are sold out, but general tickets are still available for $25. Call 1-800-Go-Bears or visit www.calbears.com for more information.

Yahoo! has partnered with the Haas School of Business to sponsor a new national case competition on digital media on November 16-18 at the Haas School in conjunction with >play, the Berkeley Digital Media Conference.

The Yahoo! Digital Media Case Competition will invite ten MBA teams from leading business schools around the nation to compete for $17,500 in cash prizes. Teams will receive a generous air stipend, hotel accommodations, and meals. They will visit Yahoo!'s Silicon Valley campus and may get an opportunity to interview with Yahoo! They will also receive free passes to the second annual >play conference, which will take place at the Haas School on Saturday, November 18.

Participating students will tackle a case involving Yahoo!'s move beyond the browser. They will be asked to map out a product and business strategy for one of Yahoo!'s initiatives in its Connected Life Business Unit. This case is a real cross-functional business challenge currently faced by Yahoo! Students will have 24 hours to hone their recommendations before presenting them to a panel of judges including senior executives from Yahoo! and other companies, as well as Haas faculty.

The competition will award the winning team a $10,000 cash prize. The second-place team will receive $5,000 and the third-place team $2,500. Participants will also have an opportunity to network with hundreds of industry professionals and mingle with fellow MBA students passionate about digital media.

Lester Center Honored with NASDAQ Award

The Haas School's Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has been named a NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence for 2006 in recognition of the center's advancement of the discipline of entrepreneurship.

The center's overall reputation for developing entrepreneurship is one of the reasons the Lester Center was honored, according to Kelley School of Business Professor Donald Kuratko at Indiana University, Bloomington, who was one of this year's judges. Kuratko also praised the work of Lester Center Executive Director Jerry Engel in bringing the center into the national spotlight.

"It is a great honor to be recognized by our peers as a leader in the field of entrepreneurship education," says Engel. "This recognition, coupled with our recent ranking by The Wall Street Journal as the #3 entrepreneurship program in the nation, is a tremendous validation of our efforts and the quality of our very entrepreneurial student body."

Entrepreneurship professors and previous winners evaluate entrepreneurship centers from around the country, honoring those that distinguish themselves in research and curriculum, outreach to emerging ventures, community collaborations, and overall prestige in the field. The award is presented by a NASDAQ executive at the annual meeting of the National Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (NCEC), being held this year on October 13-14 in Cincinnati. The award was founded by NASDAQ in 1999 in association with the NCEC.

Career Center Expands Recruiting Opportunities in Financial Services

The chairman of global insurer Swiss Re America Holding will network with Berkeley MBA students and alumni this Wednesday at one of the Career Center events bringing financial services firms to campus in greater numbers this fall.

Berkeley MBA students and alumni are invited to meet with Swiss Re's Jacques Dubois, member of the executive board, head of corporate development, and chairman of Swiss Re America Holding, on Wednesday, September 27, in the Faculty Club's Howard Lounge. The event begins with networking at 5:30 p.m. and a formal presentation at 6:00 p.m.

A number of firms, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and UBS, came to campus earlier this month to participate in two new Haas Investment Banking Presentation Days. Each of the two days featured short presentations by nine banks followed by networking. "Bringing this many recruiters to campus at one time allowed students to directly compare each firm's career opportunities and culture. It also greatly improved the banker-to-student ratio for networking," says Nicole Gehrmann, assistant director of MBA recruiting for financial services and energy.

A Banking Presentation Day on private wealth management will be held for Berkeley MBA students on Tuesday, September 26. Representatives from Wells Fargo Private Client Services, UBS, and Goldman Sachs will attend, with networking opportunities available before and after the presentations.

FACULTY NEWS

Haas School Assistant Professor Mark Seasholes won the 2006 Goldman Sachs Asset Management prize for the best paper published by the European Finance Association.

Seasholes, a member of the Haas Finance Group, shared the prize with co-author Lei Feng of Bear Stearns and Co. for their paper "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?" in the September 2005 issue of the journal Review of Finance.

In their paper, Seasholes and Feng provided an in-depth analysis of an investor's reluctance to realize losses and propensity to realize gains­ -- a behavior known as the "disposition effect." Their research tracked investors from the start of their investing career and found that more trading experience greatly reduced the disposition effect.

STAFF NEWS

Miramontes Provides Staff Computing Support

As programmer/analyst with Haas Computing Services, Scott Miramontes' primary responsibility is to provide technical computing support to Haas staff. Miramontes works with supervisor Jerry Stone and five part-time student technicians to respond to problems reported through the Haas Computing Helpdesk -- and keep staff computers running at their best. As a Haas undergraduate, he previously worked in computing services for a year and half. Following his graduation with a concentration in marketing this past May, he joined Haas computing services full-time on June 5.

Miramontes completed a summer internship with GreenMountain Engineering in 2005. The San Francisco-based consulting firm specializes in clean technology product design and manufacturing development, particularly with solar and hydrogen power sources. Miramontes is a native of Santa Rosa and now lives in San Francisco. Beyond his interest in business, he enjoys photography, music, and travel. He has journeyed to South America each of the last three summers and is an avid outdoors adventurer.

Email: scottm@haas.berkeley.edu
Phone: 510-643-0445
Office: S358

Dennis Fritzinger's Poetry to Be Published in Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace

The poems of Dennis Fritzinger, mailroom services coordinator at Haas, will be published in a new book, titled Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, to be released in October. The book was edited by award-winning author Maxine Hong Kingston.

Fritzinger is part of a writing-and-meditation workshop for veterans and their families who are working together to heal the trauma of war through art. The workshop, led by Kingston, led to the creation of this book. For information on upcoming readings, go to http://www.vowvop.org/readings_events.htm.

Berkeley MBA students were mentioned in a September 14 Wisconsin Ag Connection article titled "McDonald's Posts Corporate Responsibility Report" for the recommendations they made to the company's corporate social responsibility efforts as part of their McDonald's Fellowships. For full article: http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-national.cfm?Id=1866&yr=2006

Severin Borenstein, E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy, was quoted in news outlets regarding the drop of gas prices:

Happening at Haas

+ Chinese Vice Minister Duan Rui Chun, President of China's Law Association on Science and Technology and Vice President of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI), Chinese Group

+ Cliff Higgerson, Venture Partner, Walden International

+ Thomas Kalil, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology, UC Berkeley

+ Ta-Lin Hsu, Chairman and Founder, H&Q, Asia Pacific
The conference is sponsored by the Clausen Center for International Business & Policy, the Institute of Management, Innovation & Organization, and the Center for Research on Chinese & American Strategic Cooperation (CRC). For more information and to register: http://haas.berkeley.edu/HaasGlobal/emergingmarketsconference.html

SECOND ANNUAL HAAS DIVERSITY IN BUSINESS CONFERENCE
Friday, October 13
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
UC Berkeley International House auditorium
Organized by MBA and undergraduate students at the Haas School of Business. For more information or to register, go to http://diversity.haas.berkeley.edu/conference/index.htm.

MBA DIVERSITY RECRUITING WORKSHOP
Saturday, October 14
8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Haas School of Business
The workshop is hosted by the MBA Admissions Offices, the Haas School's Black Business Students Association and the Latin American and Hispanic Business Association for prospective MBA applicants. For more information or to register, go to http://diversity.haas.berkeley.edu/conference/mbaagenda.htm.

BERKELEY-COLUMBIA MBA SPEAKER SERIES with Wired's Chris Anderson

Friday, November 17
12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.
Arthur Andersen Auditorium, Haas School of Business
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, will discuss his best-selling new book The Long Tail. The event is open to the greater Haas School and UC Berkeley communities on a first-come, first-served basis.

EAST BAY ALUMNI - Career Event: Negotiating Entry
Thursday, September 28
6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Haas School of Business, S489
The Haas Alumni Network East Bay Chapter cordially invites you to its Career Transition Series (5), Negotiating Entry. Space is limited; the first 25 people are guaranteed.
To register, go to http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=115920.
For more information please contact: Jason Chang, jasonchang@mba.berkeley.edu or 510-264-4136.

NEW ENGLAND ALUMNI - Cross-Business School Happy Hour
Tuesday, October 3
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Julien Bar and Lounge, Langham Hotel, 250 Franklin Street, Boston
Join alumni from Wharton, Sloan (MIT), INSEAD, IMD, Stanford, Stern (NYU), Tuck (Dartmouth), SOM (Yale), London Business School, Johnson (Cornell), Fuqua (Duke), Harvard, and Columbia for the monthly Cross-Business Happy Hour (first Tuesday of every month). It is a great way to meet and mingle with alumni from Haas and other business schools. For more information, contact Celine Pan at 617-283-1562 or celine_pan@yahoo.com.

ALL ALUMNI - Haas Homecoming Celebration
Saturday, October 7
1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Haas Courtyard
All alumni, faculty, students and guests are invited to the Haas 2006 Homecoming. The annual Haas Homecoming Celebration starts with a special lecture by Dean Tom Campbell discussing his predictions for California's economy and the November statewide election. This will be followed by a pre-game Mexican Fiesta lunch in the Haas courtyard with live music and special activities for kids. Then it is off to Memorial Stadium to watch the Cal Golden Bears play football against the University of Oregon Ducks. Join us for a great afternoon at Haas.
To register, go to www.haas.berkeley.edu/alumni/homecoming.
For more information, contact events@haas.berkeley.edu.

ORANGE COUNTY ALUMNI - Evening with Dean Tom Campbell
Tuesday, October 10
6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Westin South Coast Plaza, 686 Anton Boulevard, Costa Mesa
The Orange County Chapter of the Haas Alumni Network invites you to an evening with Tom Campbell, Dean, Haas School of Business. This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet the Dean and network with fellow alumni. Dean Campbell will discuss his predictions on the November elections and what they mean for the California economy and the nation.
To register, go to http://www.haas-oc.org/.
For questions, contact Jerry Kornblau at JEKornblau@cox.net.

SAN FRANCISCO ALUMNI - Cross-Business School Happy Hour
Thursday, October 12
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Montecristo Cafe, Four Embarcadero Center (Promenade Level), San Francisco
San Francisco alumni are invited to the All Business School Happy Hour at the Montecristo Cafe in San Francisco. This is yet another occasion to network, socialize and celebrate school spirit. After the enormously successful All Business School Happy Hour in the South Bay, we have brought the event back to San Francisco. This event brings out the best of the best business schools in the world - Haas, Columbia, Duke, INSEAD, Kellogg, London Business School, London School of Economics, Michigan, MIT, NYU, Tuck, UCLA, University of Chicago, and the Yale School of Management.
To register, go to http://www.mbabayarea.com/event2006octsocial.php.
For more information, contact Rumesha Ahmed at rumesha.ahmed@bankofamerica.com.

SAN FRANCISCO ALUMNI - Evening of Networking with Haas Alumni in San Francisco
Thursday, October 19
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
One Market Restaurant, 1 Market Street, San Francisco
The Haas Alumni Network, San Francisco, invites you to join alumni, current students, and faculty for the inaugural evening of networking with Haas Alumni Network in San Francisco. Participants will have the opportunity to converse in groups based on their industry affiliation or interest. Alumni from various business sectors, class years and backgrounds will serve as industry experts, mingling and sharing insights with other alumni as well as current Haas students. Details to come soon.
For more information, contact Charlene Son at charlene_son@alumni.haas.org.

Finance Seminar
"Family Firms, Paternalism, and Labor Relations" by Holger Mueller, New York University
Thursday, October 5
4:10 p.m. to 5:40 p.m.
Room C210 Cheit Hall
For more information, contact June Wong at june@haas.berkeley.edu.

OBIR Colloquium
"Ownership concentration and corporate governance in the state sector: The political economy of China's publicly-traded firms" by Douglas Guthrie, New York University
Wednesday, October 18
4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Room C325 Cheit Hall
For more information, contact Deborah Houy at houy@haas.berkeley.edu.

The Haas NewsWire is the bi-monthly electronic news publication for the Haas community published every Monday by the Marketing and Communications Office at the Haas School. Send your news, feedback, and suggestions to haasnews@haas.berkeley.edu.